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6 potential end users. A solution accounts for domain specific characteristics within its domain model, its business logic and its user interface. Customisations A customisation is defined as an application that is based on an existing solution and has been tailored to address the needs of one specific customer. There exists a one-tomany relationship between platform, solutions and customisations: A platform hosts many solutions, and for each solution, it is possible to provide several customerspecific customisations. Apps Solutions and customisations can be regarded as “bundles” consisting of finer-grained components which are called apps. Each app within a solution or customisation provides a highly-specialised functionality. An app can be data-centric, e.g. providing the implementation for a new data type, or it can be process-centric, e.g. supporting a sales employee for performing mass-imports of customer addresses. Apps can (but may not always) affect all of the platform’s runtime layers, i.e. by defining new data object types on the data layer, new business operations on the business logic layer, and new user interface elements on the presentation layer. An app’s behaviour can be extended by creating so called app extensions which interface with the app at designated extension points. An app extension is not a standalone component, but functions as a plug-in to one or more apps. Apps as well as app extensions can be configurable. Predefined functionality can be enabled, disabled or adjusted to a certain extent. External Services Apps and app extensions may rely on external services to deliver part of their functionality. By external services we refer to systems that are deployed externally to the platform and are accessible over the Web, and through a programmatic interface (i.e. Web services). The ability to use Web services enables the developers of solutions and customisations to leverage already existing (and tested) solutions for particular highly-specialised tasks within their apps, instead of having to reinvent the wheel. For example, an app or app extension for contact management could invoke an external service to perform postal address validation for a particular contact, or to obtain stock quote information for a contact’s company. Even more importantly, the use of Web services in conjunction with apps opens the possibility of integrating solutions that are deployed on the platform with external organisations and service providers, or even with legacy systems. 5 CAST platform outline We could outline the synthesis of the CAST platform by distinguishing among three main elements within its architecture: the platform’s execution infrastructure, the
7 platform’s governance infrastructure, and the platform’s end-user directory. In the following we outline the main functionalities of each element. 5.1 Runtime infrastructure The runtime infrastructure of the CAST platform comprises three layers: • Data layer: The data layer provides an abstraction over the physical database and facilitates secured access to the data objects stored therein. It provides basic CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete) operations on objects, while enforcing permissions, checking constraints and creating journal entries. The stored objects instantiate the platform’s standard domain model, whose schema can however be manipulated through a set of standard operations in order to create new data types. Schema customisations are stored in a way which ensures that multi-tenancy does not prohibit upgradability and scalability. • Business logic layer: The business logic layer is where domain-specific business functions are implemented. The platform’s business logic can be extended by creating Event-Condition-Action rules that realise custom logic and are evaluated by a rule engine at runtime, or by providing customised business logic through Web services that are external to the CAST platform. For the first option, the platform provides a set of predefined events and a set of predefined actions. For the second option, the platform provides a configurable framework for external service invocation which can also be extended through custom plugins. • Presentation layer: The presentation layer facilitates interaction with the user: it presents information from the data layer, offers actions to execute business logic operations and accepts user input for creating, editing or deleting data. It is conceptually part of the platform’s runtime infrastructure, but it is actually executed completely on the client’s side. The RIA framework that is used for its implementation is Microsoft Silverlight. Silverlight emphasises the concept of separating user interface structure and presentation logic, and adopts a declarative approach to defining user interfaces as compositions of standard and custom controls in an XML-based language (XAML). 5.2 Governance infrastructure The governance infrastructure comprises a registry/repository system that serves as a central location in which entities and artefacts that are necessary to the operation of the CAST platform are stored, organised, and managed throughout their lifecycle. It provides a space and a set of functions for enabling the effective governance of entities and artefacts from creation to retirement. Governance is supported by providing specialised tools which assist the users of the system (i.e. platform administrators and solution/customisation developers) in performing standard (manual) quality assurance tasks, but also, by providing tools that automate a number of quality controls by applying conformance checking and data validation with regard to platform governance rules.
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